Amazon says this about the book: An entertaining exploration into the death stories of our nation’s greatest leaders―and the wild ways we choose to remember and memorialize them.

To public radio host and reporter Brady Carlson, the weighty responsibilities of being president never end. As Carlson sees it, the dead presidents (and the ways we remember them) tell us a great deal about ourselves, our history, and how we imagine our past and future. For American presidents, there is life after death―it’s just a little weird.

In Dead Presidents, Carlson takes readers on an epic trip to presidential gravesites, monuments, and memorials from sea to shining sea. With an engaging mix of history and contemporary reporting, Carlson recounts the surprising origin stories of the Washington Monument, Mount Rushmore, Grant’s Tomb, and JFK’s Eternal Flame. He explores whether William Henry Harrison really died of a cold, how the assassin’s bullet may not have been what killed James A. Garfield, and why Zachary Taylor’s remains were exhumed 140 years after he died. And he explains the strange afterlives of the presidents, including why “Hooverball” is still played in Iowa, why Millard Fillmore’s final resting place is next to that of funk legend Rick James, why “Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb?” became a running gag for Groucho Marx, why Ohio and Alaska fought for so long over the name of Mt. McKinley (now known as Denali), and why we exalt dead presidents not just with public statues and iconic paintings but with kitschy wax dummies, Halloween costumes, and bobblehead dolls.

With an infectious passion for history and an eye for neglected places and offbeat characters reminiscent of Tony Horwitz and Sarah Vowell, Carlson shows that the ways we memorialize our presidents reveal as much about us as it does about the men themselves.

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

I am a total sucker for epistolary novels. And like so many Americans, I have a great fondness for the British Royal family. (Why are we so fascinated by this family?) So when I saw a short novel comprised of letters written by Queen Elizabeth to her retired private secretary, I couldn't add it to my stack fast enough. And I'm so glad I did as Terence Blacker's Yours, E.R. is a pure delight.

When Sir Jeremy Scrimgeour retires, Queen Elizabeth, who is used to having been briefed weekly by him, is loath to give him up entirely. So she writes him letters about current events, her opinions on things in the news and her family. She comments on the frivolous and the serious. She offers her perspective on life as a royal and the way it has impacted the younger generations of the family. The novel only spans a brief period of time, from the London Olympics to the birth of Prince George but it captures the mood and flavor of a Britain on the world stage, celebratory and proud.

All of these fictional letters are from ER's perspective and they offer a personal and entertaining look into what the real Queen might believe and feel is she was ever to air her opinions in public. Blacker gives a voice to the person behind the figurehead. And the woman he's created is sharp and current and yet firmly of her own age. She's funny with a dry wit and a realistic bent. Her letters are clearly responding to the unwritten weekly reports and news clippings that Sir Jeremy continues to send to her attention and they contain not only her responses to the modern world but also reminiscences of the past. She talks about her children and who they've become as adults, her late sister, Princess Diana, Sarah Ferguson, Captain Mark Phillips, and more. Her nicknames for people and her impressions of them, including the current and previous Prime Ministers, actors, and others in the public view, are thoroughly entertaining. Even as Blacker creates a fictional persona for the Queen it is clear that he respects his actual monarch very much and while there's no saying whether ER herself holds anything like these opinions, he has made her an admirable character here in this light and eminently entertaining novel.

Amazon says this about the book: Historian Lia Carrer has finally returned to southern France, determined to rebuild her life after the death of her husband. But instead of finding solace in the region's quiet hills and medieval ruins, she falls in love with Raoul, a man whose very existence challenges everything she knows about life--and about her husband's death. As Raoul reveals the story of his past to Lia, she becomes entangled in the echoes of an ancient murder, resulting in a haunting and suspenseful journey that reminds Lia that the dead may not be as far from us as we think.

Steeped in the rich history and romantic landscape of the Languedoc region, In Another Life is a story of love that conquers time and the lost loves that haunt us all.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

What does it mean to truly live? To pursue the thing(s) that make us feel most alive? To follow our dreams? How many people do that, especially in the face of social pressure? How many people have the courage to even try? The main character in Jennifer Robson's latest novel, Moonlight Over Paris, has the chance to do just that and to do it in the magic of Paris between the wars.

Lady Helena Montagu-Douglas-Parr is determined to escape her existence in England. She is still being shunned and whispered about five years after a broken engagement. It is of no matter to society that her fiance wanted out of their bloodless connection much more than she did and has gone on to marry for love and have children. Helena still takes the brunt of disapproval, becoming a virtual social pariah. After she nearly dies of scarlet fever, her Aunt Agatha writes her from France, offering Helena an escape from this shame-filled and judgmental existence. First Helena will travel to Antibes to fully recover from her illness and then go to Paris with her wealthy, unconventional aunt to spend a year studying art under a demanding and respected master. She will pursue her passion.

Under her aunt's wing, Helena is introduced to many of the major players of the Lost Generation, Sara and Gerald Murphy, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Ernest and Hadley Hemingway, and many more. She finds her world enlarged by this eclectic bunch of ex-pat artists and writers. She collects her own circle of friends from among the students at her art school and they enjoy the glittering, bohemian decadence of the era as Helena pursues her dream to become a true artist. As she breaks free of the judgment and censure that dogged her in England, she recognizes the value and importance of following her own path. One way of breaking with convention is her deepening friendship with American journalist Sam Howard. But she finds herself conflicted over what kind of relationship she can have with him now that she's finally her own person, in charge of her own destiny.

Robson has really captured the sparkling atmosphere of Paris and the ex-pat community there in the 1920s. Helena herself is a child of wealth and lives a very privileged life with her aunt, giving her entree into this fascinating group of people. She is stretched and attracted by the passion she finds in a life where she can grow to follow her own dreams. Despite her near death experience, she is still sometimes afraid to reach for what she really wants though. Helena's character feels younger than her years but perhaps that's because of the sheltered life she's lived and the way that she has previously just always acquiesced to what was expected of her. Her sister's brief visit gives the reader a chance to see what her life would have been like, had she not broken out. Sam as the romantic interest is pretty perfect. The parallels between their journeys to courage and self-fulfillment are quite clear and make them well matched in ways far beyond just their initial attraction. The push and pull between them feels real and recognizable. The writing is well done and engaging and readers and Lost Generation fans will be tickled by the glimpses of the famous personalities included in Helena's social milieu. The truth and economics of the art world are not explored in great detail but there are flashes of the not always pleasant reality of it that help ground Helena's dreams to make it all believable. There are a few interesting twists in the novel although the end itself is no surprise. This is over all a satisfying, romantic read about coming into your own and really living on your own terms to find your happily ever after.

Monday, January 18, 2016

I love to eat. Our local magazine just published the list of the 50 best restaurants in the city and I am trying to convince my husband that we need to eat our way through the list. He is mostly amenable. In our relationship, I am the food snob and he is happy with anything (unless it's eggplant--don't serve him eggplant or he will have a hissy fit). As critical as I can be of restaurant food, I am no where near the level of expert that a restaurant critic is though. And I certainly couldn't live with the need to be so circumspect in my life that I had to worry if someone close to me was connected to a restaurant and currying favor for a good review. How much harder to be the spouse of the critic and be subjected to the same vigilance, as Elizabeth LaBan so cleverly details in her foodie novel, The Restaurant Critic's Wife.

Lila Soto is extremely pregnant with her second child. Having recently moved to Philadelphia, she hasn't yet made any friends. She's had to keep her neighbors at arm's length because her husband Sam is the Philadelphia Herald's restaurant critic and he is determined to stay anonymous for as long as possible. This means that Lila has to vet everyone she meets to make sure that they have no connection at all to the restaurant world in case she blows her husband's cover or causes his professional integrity to be questioned. While she wants to support her husband, she is incredibly lonely and bored. She misses the high powered job averting crises for an international hotel chain which she gave up when she got pregnant with her now three year old daughter Hazel. Lila was once a superstar at crisis management but she really struggles with being a full time stay at home mom, facing the monotony, repetition, and isolation with deep unhappiness. But Sam cannot see beyond his own obsession with his job to recognize just how lonely and miserable Lila is, chafing under the restraints he's imposed on their lives. So it's not much of a surprise that Lila not only cultivates two friendships she shouldn't, one with an old college friend, who is married to a chef, and one with Sebastian, a friendly and understanding waiter at a restaurant Sam reviewed, but after baby Henry's birth also agrees to do some contract work for her old boss, something that makes her feel alive in a way she hasn't for a long time indeed but will bring her into conflict with her husband.

Told in the first person by Lila, the reader will find much in Lila's days unchanging and dull but that is because Lila also views her life this way. Sam's over the top demands keep her trapped and alone until she can find her voice and push for her own fulfillment. Each of them tugs at the other as they try to find a balance that works for them, their marriage, and their individual needs. Along the way, there is a lot of frustration. Readers will sympathize with Lila and find Sam to be ridiculously dictatorial. He all but begs the reader to spit in his food the way he treats his wife as an accessory to his job. Sam's reviews are the epigraphs for each chapter and they give even more insight into the obsessive quirks that make him up. Lila's character is written to be most colorful and alive when she is working rather than during the sameness of her days as a struggling mommy, at least until she finds her own niche in the neighborhood and in her professional life. Very much a domestic drama, there's not a lot of plot driving the novel as Lila comes to some realizations about herself, Sam, and her needs. The conceit of being married to a restaurant critic and the contortions that causes in life is interesting in its own right but this is really a novel about the compromises of marriage, friendship, community, belonging, and finding yourself and your happiness to lead the life you want to lead.

I might be a sugar addict. Just reading the jacket copy, which mentions jelly donuts, turned me into a drooling Homer Simpson saying "Mmm donuts" so I am very curious to read this memoir about a fellow sugar addict and her journey to live healthfully.

If you want to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Saturday, January 16, 2016

It's fascinating to me to see which books seem to end up everywhere in the book world. It's generally almost impossible to predict but when a book is focused on books, bookstores, or libraries, it seems to have a greater than average probability of ending up on the entire reading world's radar. We readers seem to really gravitate to books that celebrate our own collective passion. But such a subject matter doesn't guarantee a book that much hoped for "buzz." There is still an undefinable something else that propels a book onto everyone's to be read list (although just being about books is enough to propel it onto mine). One of the first books like this of 2016 is Katarina Bivald's The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend.

Sara is a young woman from Sweden who has arrived in Iowa to meet and stay with her pen pal of two years, Amy Harris. When she arrives, things are not quite as expected though. Amy, who was quite elderly, has passed away and her funeral is just finishing. The town of Broken Wheel is not only economically depressed but it seems to be quietly fading away into oblivion. Sara has traveled half way around the world for something that has all but disappeared, Amy and the town she wrote of so charmingly. The townspeople feel as if they are responsible for Amy's guest, inviting Sara to live in Amy's house and looking after her until she decides what she intends to do now that everything has changed. What Sara finds is a town full of kind, quirky people she feels a kinship with because she already knows them through Amy's letters. She wafts around the town, confused by their insistence that she not pay for things, observing the barter system that allows them all to continue to get by, and wondering how to pay back these generous people who have taken her under their wing. When she hits on opening a bookstore for the town, using Amy's books as the stock, it is a labor of love for her. She's certain that the inhabitants of Broken Wheel need books and stories to revitalize their lives and their small town and this will be her gift to the people she has come to care for so very much.

The entire premise of the book is completely and totally improbable right from the get go but if readers agree to look past that stumbling block, they will find a sweet, light, and heartwarming tale of the power of books to transform people. There are letters from Amy to Sara interspersed throughout the text, the letters that inspired Sara to leave her home and come visit but also strategically chosen to highlight a person or an aspect of Broken Wheel that will be more fully illuminated in the chapter following it. Some of the secondary characters have fairly extensive side stories, detouring the reader from the main plot for quite a while. Sometimes this works and sometimes it is terribly distracting. Other secondary characters, including Tom, Amy's nephew and novel's the romantic interest, are not fleshed out and feel unfortunately one dimensional. Interestingly, the characters are a very diverse group, allowing Bivald to touch lightly on the themes of tolerance, racism, homophobia, alcoholism, evangelicalism, and more. Sara herself is a quiet and unassuming main character, in fact a bit of a milquetoast. She's lost and wandering but the town grounds her. They are what she needs and vice versa. She has an interesting outlook on book selling and books, creating truly enchanting shelving categories and recommending unusual reading choices to the townspeople, stretching their minds through the books she hands them. The end of the novel is predictable but appropriate for this sentimental, feel-good novel about reading and books, how they bring us together as human beings, and the importance they play in everyone's lives. The tale will charm and please readers who love to read about books and who are looking for an undemanding and diverting read.

Thursday, January 14, 2016

I have spent much of my adult life watching my weight, gaining weight, trying to lose weight, and starting the cycle all over again. I use food for comfort and consolation. I use food to ameliorate boredom and I eat mindlessly. I do not have the healthiest relationship to food and this dysfunction is of very long standing. So I was incredibly interested to read Kelsey Miller's memoir based on her web series at Refinery 29 called Big Girl: How I Gave Up Dieting and Got a Life.

In this memoir, Miller chronicles her diet filled past and the short term successes and long term failures of these diets. She discusses what likely led her to eat the way she did. She talks about the emotional toll of being a "big girl" and her overwhelming desire to be thin and how that would surely transform her life for the better. Anyone who has tipped the scale in the overweight or obese range can likely relate to much of what Miller has felt. But just what does she mean by giving up dieting? Is she agreeing that she'll never be a healthy weight and so who cares? No. In fact, with the help of a therapist who specializes in Intuitive Eating, Miller taught herself how to eat again. And her conclusions are rather fascinating.

When we are born and when we are small, we all know how to eat. We eat to fuel our bodies, eating only until we are full and then going about our other business. But somewhere along the way, some of us, for any number of reasons, unlearn this innate knowledge, eating beyond satiety. And that's when things start going wrong food-wise. Rather than diet and restrict foods or keep track of calories or deny her cravings, Miller committed to the surprisingly difficult idea of learning to listen to her body again and letting that drive her eating, trusting that the scale (which she doesn't ever consult) would show the results of a more mindful approach to eating. And at the same time, she took a look at her life and recognized how much of a holding pattern she was in, waiting to lose weight, instead of going out and living her life without regard to her size.

I am fascinated by her embrace of this very different mindset. I've not looked for any pictures of her so I have no idea how it's ultimately worked, but I can see a lot of value in being so in touch with your body and its desires. Miller is very open and honest about the challenges she faces along the way, some fairly universal and some incredibly specific to her, and about the fact that this is going to be a lifelong journey for her. She doesn't shy away from the times she cannot follow her own plan but she slows down and looks at the underlying cause and faces it, instead of smothering it in ketchup and eating to avoid it. But this is not all serious life advice. Miller is funny and self-deprecating. This memoir is very definitely centered on her own life and as such is a very personal account of her past and its impact on her, as well as a no holds barred look into her life as it stands currently, socially, sexually, emotionally, and in terms of eating; it's not a manual for following what she herself is doing (she gives a shout out to the book that inspired her and the therapist who is helping her confront all the feelings mindfulness about literally everything in life are bringing to the fore and which need to be acknowledged). The writing tone is very casual and remarkably candid, as if she's simply connecting with a friend who wouldn't even think of judging her. In a world obsessed with size 0 models and actresses, it's refreshing to have a Kelsey Miller out there talking about the heavier end of the weight spectrum and how to develop a healthy attitude around food and eating, two things that are so incredibly fraught in our world. I suspect I'll be thinking about some of her insights for quite a while.

Amazon says this about the book: This snappy, sassy redemption story set in small-town Montana is “a wild and crazy debut novel by a talented young writer” (Jackie Collins), filled with an uproarious and unforgettable cast of characters you won’t want to leave behind.

Welcome to Quinn, Montana, population: 956. A town where nearly all of the volunteer firemen are named Jim, where The Dirty Shame—the only bar in town—refuses to serve mixed drinks (too much work), where the locals hate the newcomers (then again, they hate the locals, too), and where the town softball team has never even come close to having a winning season. Until now.

Rachel Flood has snuck back into town after leaving behind a trail of chaos nine years prior. She’s here to make amends, but nobody wants to hear it, especially her mother, Laverna. But with the help of a local boy named Jake and a little soul-searching, she just might make things right.

In the spirit of Empire Falls and A League of Their Own, with the caustic wit of Where’d You Go, Bernadette thrown in for good measure, Richard Fifield’s hilarious and heartwarming debut will have you laughing through tears.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Typically when you think of romance, you expect to watch a hero and heroine fall in love, face some sort of obstacle or misunderstanding, and ultimately overcome everything to be together. That is not the case at all in Stephanie Laurens' newest Regency set historical romance, The Lady's Command.

Lady Edwina and her husband Declan Frobisher are very newly married when the novel opens. They are in love and clearly happy in their marriage and with each other as they mingle and present the picture they want society to have of them. Lady Edwina is the daughter of a duke and so has a large amount of social cachet. Declan is a ship's captain and the son of an old and long established shipping family which often assists the Crown in its more delicate endeavors. They are devoting their honeymoon to creating their newly combined image when Declan is unexpectedly called into service on a secret mission. He is disappointed to leave his delectable new wife behind but he dismisses her appeal to accompany him. Lady Edwina, not as delicate and conventional as she appears, is unwilling to stay home so despite her husband's wishes, she stows away on his ship, determined to play a part in all aspects of his life and forging a marriage of equals. Once discovered, her presence will not only provide Declan with a better cover story for his unexpected presence in Freetown, Sierra Leone but her social savvy will help him discover more than he ever imagined.

With their ostensibly straightforward courtship behind the main characters, this novel is more a settling into marriage than a spark filled coming together. They are still negotiating what their marriage will look like and how it will be balanced and their working together to uncover whatever is rotten in Freetown signals Declan that the beautiful Edwina intends to be always by his side no matter what danger or hardship they might face. As they look into the disturbing disappearances of several soldiers, sailors, and a government spy, they discover that there are women and children missing from the colony as well, turning the novel from a romance into more of a mystery suspense novel. The romantic bits are conveyed in flowery prose while the mystery is rife with intrigue and covert investigation. In the end, the latter definitely takes precedence, and the reader's interest, over the former. As this is the first in a series of four novels, the ending is unresolved and the reader will have to read subsequent novels to unravel the carefully plotted answer to all of the questions raised by the mysterious disappearances raised here in this first book. Laurens generally writes well but this is a little light on the romance for some romance readers, myself included.

Three sisters who summer together with their children and husbands are forever changed when a tragedy strikes them. I do love stories of families affected by something, how it changes their dynamics, and how they cope over time so this is right in my wheelhouse.

We send some of our favorites around to each other and this is Wendy's pick for this round. About a young boy recruited by guerrilla fighters in his country's civil war who grows ever more distant from the life he led before, this should be a brutal read indeed.

If you want to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Some books race along through a careening plot to their inevitable end. Others are more mesmeric, hypnotizing the reader with their feel rather than any internal movement. Tess Hadley, called one of Britain's pre-eminent contemporary writers is definitely more of the mesmeric bent. Her latest novel, The Past, is a domestic, character driven novel centered on four siblings who have returned to their grandparents' country home for a three week holiday to determine the fate of this house that keeps them so rooted together.

Alice, the flaky, free-spirited one, arrives first with Kasim, the twenty year old son of her ex-boyfriend, in tow. True to her personality, having forgotten her keys, she takes Kasim for a ramble while she waits for the others to arrive. And they eventually do all arrive: Harriet, the serious oldest; Fran, with her young children Ivy and Arthur but without her musician husband; and Roland, the only brother, with his teenaged daughter Molly and his brand new third wife, Pilar, a glamorous and young Argentinian lawyer whose polish seems at odds with the homely, British surroundings and these middle aged British siblings. As the four siblings settle into what might be their last three weeks in the old house together, tensions and understated, half-forgotten, or ignored potentials simmer slowly underneath their every day interactions. The children are left to their own devices, exploring inside and out, making an unpleasant discovery that snags their imaginations, and witnessing and abetting, if not entirely understanding, the burgeoning sexual attraction between Kasim and Molly. Each of the characters stumbles, even in this familiar place and amongst family, their misunderstandings, small hurts and irritations, and speculations driving the story as much as their casual, familiar regard for each other.

The novel is visually rich and descriptive, engaging all of the senses with its musty leaf mold and air of genteel decay weaving through the season, the house, and the relationships. The siblings are intricately bound up together and in their decision about the house. They both converge and diverge as adults here in this place. The three sectioned narrative, the present followed by a section set in the past and circling back to the present again, serves to ground the characters in their long held roles, adding depth to who they are as adults in the present. The story is a slow and torpid read but even in its slowness, there is a constant state of expectation that this overheated, blowsy summer will come to a sad and brittle end. Hadley's writing is sumptuous and decadent but the characters themselves, almost uninteresting by comparison with the natural world around the house, were overshadowed by the heavy inexorability of the outcome. The final scene in the novel is beautiful in its poignancy, skillfully hearkening back to the past that ties them all together, but not even the revelations and climaxes in the final third of the novel were enough to make for a plot of any sort. While beautifully written, there was no movement, just extended character development, and unfortunately that makes for a rather fatiguing read.

Amazon says this about the book: From the acclaimed author of The Darlings comes an incisive, hilarious, and tender exploration of fatherhood, love, and family life through the story of a widower who attempts to become the father he didn’t know he could be.

Charlie Goldwyn’s life hasn’t exactly gone according to plan. Widowerhood at thirty-three and twelve-hour workdays have left a gap in his relationship with his quirky five-year-old son, Caleb, whose obsession with natural disasters and penchant for girls’ clothing have made him something of a loner at his preschool. The only thing Charlie has going for him is his job at a prestigious law firm, where he is finally close to becoming a partner.

But when a slight lapse in judgment at an office party leaves him humiliatingly unemployed, stuck at home with Caleb for the summer, and forced to face his own estranged father, Charlie starts to realize that there’s more to fatherhood than financially providing for his son, and more to being a son than overtaking his father’s successes.

At turns heartbreaking and hilarious, This Was Not the Plan is a story about loss and love, parenthood, and friendship, and what true work-life balance means.

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

As much as I love reading historical set romances, I am so very glad I didn't live back then when the pressure to marry, and to marry quickly, was so high. At least as romances posit, for the women who had a choice in the matter, they were still choosing a spouse from amongst men they didn't know or had just the merest of acquaintances with and they had to rely on their male relatives or the whispers of society to vet their choice. There was little room to make a mistake without either marrying the mistake and being trapped for life or ruining your reputation and your chances at another match (which was, of course, the ultimate goal). Love may or may not have played a role in the matches but when you barely know someone, how can you possibly love them, no matter how romanticized? If I think back on all the times I was in love, right back to Philip Kistler in preschool (he came to my birthday party and gave me a ring so I think we're still engaged, right?), I am more than grateful that I had the chance to make mistakes and then find real love without suffering any social fallout as a result. (This is in no way implying that there's anything wrong with Philip but we were only four and marrying at such an age is to be frowned upon. Since we didn't go to kindergarten together and promptly lost touch, I can only say that as a preschooler, he had the potential to grow up and be a lovely human being. He would only have been a mistake for me. Here ends my stab at forestalling a libel lawsuit.) Although historically women didn't have to worry about their preschool loves, they did have to do their best to choose the right person, the person they might come to truly like and maybe even love over the course of their lifetime, without really knowing enough about that person to make an fair and informed decision because broken engagements were unacceptable and plain old unhappiness was no reason for marital dissolution. American Merry Pelford, in Eloisa James' My American Duchess has already made some mistakes and has to learn just what true love is, compared to the tepid feelings she's felt before but can she do that without making yet another, potentially irreparable mistake?

Merry and her aunt and uncle have come to London for the season. Behind her, in Boston, she leaves two broken engagements and she knows she cannot afford a third jilted fiance to her name, despite her sizable inheritance. She accepts the proposal of Lord Cedric Allardyce, the good looking, fashionable younger brother of a duke. But at the very ball where she accepts Cedric's suit, she meets and is attracted by a brooding and powerful man she meets out on the balcony. This unnamed man is equally enchanted by Merry and her American forthrightness and instantly determines to marry her. Each of them are horrified to discover the other's identity. He is the Duke of Trent, Cedric's older twin and she, of course, is Cedric's newly minted fiance. Although it is quickly clear that Merry and Cedric are mismatched in every way, they are yoked together (and in fact, Cedric could really use her fortune). That Cedric and Trent have spent their whole lives competing makes the situation that much more untenable. As the older brother, Trent received the dukedom but Cedric was the twin loved by their mother. Both Allardyces lost out on something they dearly desired. Now Cedric possesses Merry, the woman his brother wants, and Merry cannot allow herself to contemplate jilting a third fiance.

Merry is a fun heroine. She knows she is a bit of an awkward American, ignorant of English society ways but she's only willing to change so far. She has her own value system and being in England is not going to turn her into a less democratic person. Her habit of dropping little snippets of knowledge into the conversation when she's nervous or filling a silence is endearing. That she is trapped in an increasingly terrible situation because of her full speed ahead personality and her naivete serves to make her just that much more sympathetic to readers. Cedric is a spoiled baddie of a character but he's not as entirely awful and unredeemed as he might be, though the reader, like Merry, certainly prefers the solid and kind Duke of Trent. The chemistry between Merry and Trent is pretty steamy and satisfying indeed, and the story line centered on learning to recognize and cherish real love over the superficial is well done. All in all, this was a charming and entertaining read, just as I've come to expect from James.

Monday, January 4, 2016

It's a new year and I start it with a fresh slate, which is especially friendly when my list of books needing reviews gets too big, as it inevitably does towards the end of the year. :-) This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed this past week are:

The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
My American Duchess by Eloisa James

Is this not a gorgeous cover?! And the story of a young bride dismayed by her husband's attraction to her fortune rather than herself turning to their new cook, who has sinister plans of her own for her employers, sounds thrillingly deadly.

Translated from the Swedish, this novel about a nurse whose whole world is rocked by a tragedy and the womanizing heir to a luxury travel company she meets as she strives for a more sustainable world sounds intriguingly different.

I can't wait to read this novel about a woman who steals a baby from a shopping cart and raises her as her own for more than twenty years, the daughter she steals, the birth mother, and others affected by this shocking crime.

Sunday, January 3, 2016

I woke up on January 1 with no voice, a ghastly cough, and a throat that felt like I had swallowed a cheese grater. I mean, it hurt to swallow my own spit. I would have preferred a hangover, let me tell you! Obviously the busy craziness of the past few weeks caught up with me with a vengeance. Luckily I feel somewhat better today. Just the fact that I am awake proves it as I slept about 40 of the previous 48 hours. So now it's time to play catch-up on the things that the holidays made fall by the wayside and then being sick relegated to completely unimportant. I have to take down the Christmas decorations. I need to write a couple of reviews. In short, I have to go back to tackling my ever present to-do lists. Same stuff, different year. :-)

Loads of book-loving people I know say that no one ever gets them bookish Christmas presents. Thankfully my family doesn't know that no books is even an option (because it basically isn't) and I was spoiled again this year. In addition to gift cards, I got this interesting stack of books from my wish list. It's always curious to me to see what others find to give me from my appallingly extensive list. I know in the past my sister has said she reads all the descriptions and chooses ones that sound good to her. I have no idea how my husband chooses other than this year he was tickled by the fact that one of my wished for books fit his present theme perfectly. I aim to please, you know. ;-) As always, my gift pile as a whole is a strange and wondrous stack of mismatched eccentricity. Which is to say that it suits me and my reading habits to a T.

Now that we are into 2016, I can look back at my last year's reading and make the all important distinctions like best book of the year and so on. I never want to do it before the year is officially rung out because what if the last book of the year (in my case The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford) is the most enjoyable thing I read all year and I've already made a list? It wasn't, although it was a wonderful read, so the point is moot but I wouldn't like to tempt fate one of these years, just in case. The book that was my favorite read this past year, hands down was: Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf.

It's kind of cheater-y of me to make a list like this because not only is the list itself 11 books rather than the traditional top ten (Tuck Everlasting was a re-read so I could take it off my books for this year if pushed), but I mentiioned two, one of which is actually two novels published under one cover and therefore one book in my accounting, before I made the list. That makes it a baker's dozen list. And baker's dozens are always good, especially if it means a free donut, I mean, an extra book. Interestingly, the list includes 6 fiction titles, 2 sci-fi/fantasy, 2 YA, 1 novel in translation, and 2 non-fiction. That's about as statistically minded as I get. The rest of the books I read in 2015 can be found in the sidebar and many of them were truly entertaining as well. Have fun exploring them, if you are so inclined.

Since I woke up so sick on the first of the year, I did not (yet) end up reading the book I assumed would be my first read of the new year. Instead, in the few hours I was awake and not weeping from the pain of swallowing my own saliva, I reached for a pure comfort read: My American Duchess by Eloisa James. When I feel like dirt, a well-written romance, especially a historical romance, hits the spot for sure. So that was my first read of 2016. What was (or is, if it's still ongoing) your first read of this new year?

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About Me

A voracious reader, fledgling runner, and full time kiddie chauffeur.
If anyone out there wants to send me books for review (oh please don't fro me in that briar patch!), you can contact me at whitreidsmama (at) yahoo (dot) com. If you do write me there, put the blog name in the subject line or I'm liable to send the unread message to spam. My book review policy can be found here.